


The gift of knowing

by Eloarei



Category: Fire and Hemlock - Diana Wynne Jones
Genre: F/M, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:27:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28443894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eloarei/pseuds/Eloarei
Summary: Years before her birth, Polly Whittacker was predicted. It was the only light of hope in one man's cursed life.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	The gift of knowing

**Author's Note:**

> When I first decided I wanted to try a F&H fic, this was the first thing that came out. I'm still tilting my head at it, but it's not doing any good lingering in the ether, so here.  
> I chose 'Beryl' as Granny's name out of a list of names that would have been popular at her time of birth. I think it has an old-fashioned charm.

Tom stood in Mabel's grand bedroom, trying to think about the place with a clear head. He hadn't had a clear head since he'd met her and fallen into her sticky web-- though comparing her to a spider (even a black widow) might be unkind towards spiders. 

Thinking back, he could hardly say how they'd even met, let alone what drew him to her other than the obvious fact that she was gorgeous in a way that only one who lived off the lives of others could be. She had an ethereal beauty and charm which he knew now were unfortunately literal. He'd been easily ensnared; completely enthralled in the realest sense. 

Some part of him still thought fondly on the seven years he spent with her, but that was only because he was still shaking free of the fog of her influence. Now that she'd let him go, Tom was _starting_ to be able to see things for what they were. 

He'd be leaving this house soon (for all that Mabel had _heavily_ encouraged him to stay), and he wanted to remember it for how it was, knowing somehow that if he wasn't careful he'd be left only with such memories as Mabel wanted him to have.   
  
Her room was the largest bedroom in the mansion, to no surprise. Tom had spent many an hour with her there, though he technically roomed elsewhere in the overlarge house. But despite the amount of time he’d spent there, until now he didn’t really have a clear vision of it. Mabel was out of the house right now, probably being fawned over by her new boy, so Tom took a few moments in between packing up his things in order to say sort of a goodbye to the place. Mabel may have been a regrettable mistake, but that wasn’t Hunsdon House’s fault.  
  
There was a large armoire against one wall, ornate and very fitting Mabel’s ancient elegance, with an equally antique mirror atop it. Sometimes it seemed to have gone a little foggy at the edges, as old mirrors do, and sometimes it was perfectly clean and clear. Tom thought it had to do with how much of Mabel’s influence was currently clouding his mind. Right now it had an aged vignette to it, though the picture it showed was as clear as day even in the persistent twilight of the room.  
  
On the wall opposite the armoire was a collection of portraits. Mabel was very particular about them, though she always acted as if they meant nothing to her, carefully never sparing them a glance when Tom was around. Still, he knew her well enough that he could tell they were special. They were various members of her family-- or so he’d have thought, if he hadn’t recently gleaned the truth of the situation. Now he knew they were her other sacrifices, the boys and young men she’d snared before him, who she’d consumed not unlike a hungry widow-spider; like a spider, it was nothing personal. He wasn’t sure if that made the whole event more or less insulting.  
  
There was a picture of him there, from some years ago, not long after he’d met and fallen for her. But that wasn’t the one that caught his attention. A few spaces away from his own picture was a photo of another young man. He didn’t look especially different from the rest of them; Mabel had a type. But there was something about him.  
  
Tom squinted in concentration at the mirror. He got the feeling that if he turned around, there’d be nothing to see, just an empty space waiting to be filled, probably after his unfortunate demise. _Looking_ at it didn’t tell him anything, but as he locked gazes with the boy, he had a _feeling_ that he knew to be true. There was a link there, between the two of them.  
  
He’d bet anything that the boy’s name was Thomas, and he’d wager another year to Mabel to say he played some kind of instrument. A violin, like Tom himself did? Something that reverberated, that rang out his sorrows. He couldn’t see the boy’s hands but he knew there’d be callouses from the rough draw of the strings.  
  
None of that was special. That was just how Mabel liked them, or maybe the kinds of young men who were vulnerable to her.  
  
What was special was that Tom could see both the ugly shadow on this one that followed all the rest of them, and also a light that seemed impossible for the situation. The future was a bleak nine years; it always was. But the shadow of death on the reflection of this photo was, for once, not quite dark enough to drown out the light of hope that clung doggedly on.  
  
This young Thomas had escaped. Or rather, he _would_ escape. Or, most likely, he would have the _chance_ to escape. He wouldn’t face Mabel alone.  
  
It was a heartening realization, even though Tom himself harbored no such hope. It was a bit _dis_ heartening to realize that he knew with great certainty that _that_ was just as true. But that anyone could somehow escape Mabel’s clutches did lessen the sting a bit. What was the trick to it? What was the connection to _him?_ How could he help a young man in the future best the faerie queen, but have no chance of doing it himself? Perhaps a clue he would leave? The weakening of a link in the chain?  
  
The young man in the photo didn’t tell him, didn’t do more than stare quite as balefully as the rest, and when Tom turned to see if a change in perspective would help, it was as he expected: there was nothing. So, he let the boy flee from his mind for the time, and returned to saying goodbye to their timeless prison.  
  
She wasn’t pleased with it, but Mabel did bid him leave finally, and Tom went back out into a world that did not sway exclusively to her whim. He made himself a life, always knowing that it was temporary, but trying to live it like anyone else would: like it might or might not be. He dwelled as little on Mabel and her curses as possible, and even less on the other young man who would one day share perhaps only _half_ his fate. But from time to time, young fair Thomas crossed his mind, when he least expected.  
  
_‘Why should I remember him now?’_ he thought, as he caught the eye of a young woman in the audience of his violin recital. She didn’t look a thing like him, and Tom was quite sure she wasn’t living on borrowed time. She had a serious longevity about her, far more than he. But she was alluring in ways much more mundane than Mabel, so when the concert was over he went out into the small crowd to speak with her.  
  
It went well. She didn’t draw him in with any sort of magic, other than that which he was starting to recognize as Mabel’s ‘gift’ to him, that strange _knowing._ He liked this girl both despite and because of her normality, and she liked him for no reason he dared to ask, lest she change her mind upon trying to explain. They went to dinner, and he found her name was Beryl, and he knew he was going to marry her.  
  
And marry they did, on a spring day that bore no resemblance to autumn except for the warm colors of the flowers as they sat ringed in bright newborn green. It was beautiful; _she_ was beautiful; and it was all more than he thought he might deserve, especially as underneath his glowing joy he was guilty. Beryl was sure they were marrying for life. He didn’t know how to tell her that they had perhaps a few years.  
  
In the end, he never did, though he thought she knew, and knew _why._ Maybe it was just that she was clever, perceptive, and quick to believe fairy tales. Or maybe his gift of knowing had bled into her through love or fate.  
  
His nine years of probation passed as quick as a blink, a dream full to bursting with windfalls and pitfalls both endemic to human life, but a dream nonetheless, with waking in sight. He didn’t want to go back to the reality where his life would be forfeit for the benefit of creatures who only play-acted as humans, but he knew that he would. Part of this was a steady tug between his shoulder blades, which grew stronger every month as the end neared. The other part was that he could tell it simply _was_ true, the same way he knew that Mabel wouldn’t _always_ get her way. _He_ would go to his death as promised, and be comforted in a hope for the future.  
  
To his pleasure (and his lament, the bleak grey dawn drawing so near), Beryl gave him that hope some months before his ill-fated Hallow’s Eve. A child, she told him, growing within her. She was as excited as any wife ought to be, at the thought of raising this new life with the man she’d pledged hers to, and Tom mirrored the emotion as much as was possible. Even without his _knowing,_ he was so happy to think he’d leave behind some progeny, a bit of proof that he didn’t belong entirely to the faerie realm.  
  
And then he _knew,_ and it all made sense. His hands on Beryl’s growing belly just weeks before he would have to say goodbye, he knew. This life, still nestled warm and safe, would one day save a man much like himself who otherwise would have no hope of love or light. _This_ was what Tom could do for the future.  
  
He kissed Beryl and wrapped her arms around her. “She’s going to be beautiful, I know,” he murmured happily. “She’ll have a strong heart and a caring soul.”  
  
Beryl laughed. “I’m glad you think so.” Her eyes were warm, but teasing. “But I hate to tell you, _she’s_ going to be a boy.”  
  
Tom paused, staring first up at Beryl’s smiling face and then down at her stomach, as if he could see it. He’d thought he’d known that his child was going to save young Thomas with _love,_ but Beryl had a way of knowing things too, and he didn’t doubt her here.  
  
Well. Perhaps it was more complicated than he’d been thinking, but there were many ways of loving, he knew. Whatever love could save a man was a love worth dying for and, among his many sorrows, enabling that love was something he could never regret.


End file.
